Thanks! It's something that is easy to overlook, but can ruin your day really fast. Thanks for reminding me too, it's easy to forget little things like this.

 

I got a few more things done today

The new longer 6" shackles are installed, between the extra length and more upright shackle angle, I got an extra inch of lift in the back. It's still not level but close, once I get a front bumper made and winch mounted it should be good. I'm sure it will settle a little more after a couple good runs too.

Before





After

 

Got the flat pitman arm installed, it fits good and I didn't have to clearance the frame at all.

Before



After

 

I was also able to get the front shock hoops mounted up and at the same time I chained the motor mounts. For the time being, I'm using an old set of Skyjacker 12" hydro's but I would like to step up to some better shocks soon.

 

just wondering, and im sorry if this sounds stupid, but whats the point of having a flat pitman... i was under the impression that a steeper angle on the drag link is a bad idea...

 

When you start to get a lot of articulation the endlinks/draglink can hit the leaf spring. If you go with a flat arm it helps clearance it.

 

Lookin good. What did you wrap your hydro assist lines with? I should probably wrap mine sometime soon, there a re a few spots that are a little worn from rubbing.

 

It's one of the other kits he has on his website.

Paddle shifters would be awesome, but expensive. He also has this picture of the controller mounted on the steering wheel.

After seeing that picture it also gives me some idea's about having a wired remote that you can hold in your hand. No reaching for the buttons!

 

Exactly, on the last 4Runner the tie rod would just touch the spring at full stuff. Also, by rotating the steering box and using a flat pitman arm it required less triming of the sheetmetal around the box. In a perfect world you would want the least angle possible on the drag link, but with leaf springs it's really not possible. Even though there is more angle the hydro ram takes care of most any issue the angle could cause.

 

did you ever end up bending your front bumper on your old 4runner...just wondering..it looks fairly strong..just wanted to know for sure..im lookin at a BUNCH of different designs..to make my own eventually..just wanna make sure i make it strong enough to take a deer at 70mph.. and not total the truck..(would be a bad sight though)..i want it to be able to withstand just about anything i can trow at it..like a Road Armor bumper..(but not that GAWDY..lol)

 

It's fiberglass exhaust header wrap, in the area where it really rubs I added a section of radiator hose wrapped in electrical tape.

 

another idea for wraping up hydro lines for the steering is spiral wrap "protecto-wrap" its a somewhat hard plastic wrap for hydraulic hoses or kevlar sleeving. you can get em both at any hydraulic supply shop and more then likely any heavy equipment or agricultural equipment delarship should have some, i know at the shop i work at we use it all the time, pretty durable stuff, though it can be kinda a biatch to put on if the lines are already hooked up.

BTW dirtco, the runner is looking wicked, i also am suffering from the natorious sased 4runner ass-squat, im going to wait till spring and then see how the springs have settled and then go from there

 

I'm pretty sure that no matter what bumper you have, if you hit a deer at 70 in an 80's Toyota it's going to be totalled. You would pretty much have to have a full race chasis added to the frame to even think about keeping it in one piece.

My bumper was pretty strong for what it was. I had it tied into the front of the frame/spring hanger in 7 spots, along with the fender bars, shock hoops and even the main tub of the body. On the trails the bumper did a great job of protecting the engine bay, headlights, grille, etc; but it was never made for a super hard impact. Even if you used high quality DOM (or chromoly), the weak area is going to be the frame. The bumper might still be fairly straight, but something have to give and I'm guessing that would be the frame. If it was a slower hit, on a smaller deer, a bumper like mine would do a good job of protecting the front sheet metal from damage.

While we are on the subject of destruction ...

Cory found a couple pictures he took of me in Carnage. This is what led to me retiring the last 4Runner and building this one! There's not a whole lot of pictures, and the quality is not the best, but it gives you a good idea of what the truck went through. This lasted a good ten to fifteen minutes (maybe more) before I finally got out of it. I was able to drive out of every flop and land back on my wheels!

 

That's a good idea, I bet it would take a lot of wear.

It sets close to level, it would be better if the front came down about 1 - 1 1/2"s. I have the same plan as you; wait until it gets wheeled a few times, add the front bumper and winch, then decide if I need to change anything. The front shackle angle does seem to be getting a little better, I really think that it needs a good wheeling trip to settle everything in.

 

I also have some other news:

First, I got a winch ! Cory gave me his old winch for Christmas. It wasn't working very good so he picked up a new Warn. It's the Ramsey 9500 Patroit, it's years old but worked really good up until a few months ago. It will pull the line in and out but not with a load (no power), I think it might need a new motor or a good cleaning. Also, there is a bunch of play in it, if you grap both sides of it and lift it up the whole winch sags and has a "bow" to it. I hoping that it's just some of the bushings inside, I plan on a full rebuild as long as the parts are not too expensive (and avalible).

I've also decided that I'm going to run a single, twin sticked, 4.70 23 spline transfer case. After doing a TON of research I figure this is my best choice. It doesn't give me all the gearing options I would like, but there has to be some compermises in a build like this. The problem is that with the auto and the Inchworm adapter, there is an extra 5" added to the length of the drivetrain (compaired to a W56). With my old G52 and dual cases the rear transfer case flange was very close to the the rear crossmember, with the auto it would be under it. Not only would I have to modify the crossmember and possibly the E-brake set up, but I would have to come up with some crazy shifters to keep the rear heat and center console in one peice.

Here is a picture of the Inchworm set up and how long it is. If you look at the second picture you can see that the front driveshaft hoop / crossmember support is where the factory transfer case should be.

 

That's cool about the winch!!! It seemed to work OK when he was winching Freddy out of BV Carnage after his R&P blew up. Did he leave the syn. line in it for you?

I think you'll be fine with a single 4.7 case and the auto. Deep snow bashing might be the only tough thing being geared that low but that's only a couple of times a year.

Speaking of snowbashing, I think I'm going to try to head up to Rollins Pass sometime in January, want to join us?

 

Yea, it seemed to work really well for a long time. It might just be a connection or something, either way it really needs a full tear down and rebuild. I think that it needs some new bushings or maybe new gears, it has a lot of play in it. I still need to talk to Ramsey and make sure all the parts are available. Cory kept the syn. line, he got a new Warn 9.0 RC which only has 50 feet of rope. He is going to use the old rope as a cable extension.

I'm sure the single 4.7 case with the auto will work fine. The last 4Runner had stock gears in both cases, so the 4.7's will be very close to the last truck. The auto will make it seem lower, but by how much I don't know . I think in 3rd gear it should be okay, maybe a little lower than 1st gear stock 4low? Most the snow wheeling I do is at low speed, once the snow gets deeper you have to carry more speed but I still think that's possible. When it gets to the point where I have to have ton's of speed and "pinball " through a section, I'll stop and call it done. It will be twin sticked, which will open up more gearing options, and the manual electronic auto controller should help a bunch.

I ordered up the auto adapter yesterday , then got a call from Jim at Inchworm today double checking the spline count and making sure my order was correct. I got home today after work, checked my e-mail and the package has shipped. So far I'm very pleased with Jim's/Inchworms service

I'd love to go wheeling this January, if the truck is ready. Maybe late Jan. or early Feb.? I'd like to hit up Chinaman's sometime this winter too!

 

Having owned an A340 crawler when I was at All-Pro, I will say that I went back and forth constantly about what Tcase setup I would have gone with. I never saw the need for a 4.7 case behind a crawl box, however, I did see the need for a 4.7 reduction somehow. (stock gearing in the dual cases)

The reason that I will recommend dual 2.28 boxes is strictly for the front d-shaft angle. That and I never needed the 4.7 reduction all the time. Most of the time I could tool around in the normal low range, but when I needed the lower gearing it would have been nice to have. I never ended up going to duals or 4.7s before I sold it, but it was definitely on the list. I can remember wheeling at the Hammers for the Jan 2007 All-Pro Jamboree. I led 18 rigs up AfterShock in sub 10* weather. I could have used the gearing then, but in most places the stock reduction was fine. It would have been very nice to have both available.

 

Thanks for the input, I agree 100%. I went back and forth many times trying to figure out what I wanted to do. After tons of research I knew that I did not need dual cases, with 4.7's in the last case. Most people said that it was, for the most part, useless; with the auto, it just wasn't needed. That's when I decided that I wanted to run dual stock cases (like you said), that's what I had in the last truck (so I already have the set up) and I really liked it.

The problem that I ran into was the length of the adapter for the auto trans. It adds another 5" in length over a W56 set up. Taking into thought that Marlins dual case adapter and crawl box measure 6 1/2", to run dual cases with my auto, would be almost the same length as running tripple cases in a normal 5 speed truck. While many people run that set up, I'm really not willing to cut/modify this truck that much.

After reading your comments, and wondering myself what the gearing will be like with a single 4.7 t-case, I threw some numbers together. These numbers are not exact, but are correct in relation to themselves (if that makes any sense ) Okay, here we go ...

While these numbers are not correct to the vehicle, it will give me a good idea of the "seat of the pants" feel and a good idea if I will have enough gearing for fire roads, etc.

Since I do not know the automatic's first gear ratio, I'm going to use a 5 speeds first gear ratio 3.93. I heard the low range gear ratio of the auto t-case is 2.66 and I have 5.29 gears.

3.93 x 2.66 x 5.29 = 55.30 This is my "ballpark" stock crawl ratio, while the number is not correct, it will give me a baseline idea.

With the 4.7 gears, and the rest of the numbers the same we get this,
3.93 x 4.70 x 5.29 = 97.71 Almost double of stock

While I know it should crawl well, I was worried about higher speed sections. I decided to see what it would look like in third gear. Third gear should be about "direct drive" meaning no underdrive/no overdrive.
1.0 x 4.70 x 5.29 = 24.86

Two wheel drive, 4 high, first gear would be,
3.93 x 5.29 = 20.78

Looking at the numbers, I'm guessing that third gear low (w/4.7) should feel a little lower than the stock case in 2nd gear (around there) or a bit lower than 2wd, 4 high first gear.

 

A340 1st gear is only a 2.80:1 1st gear.

Stock: 2.80 x 5.29 x 2.68 would be 39:1

4.7 rear: 2.80 x 5.29 x 4.7 would be 69:1

With the A/T the torque converter effectively doubles your crawl ratio. That is why autos tend to not need the super low gearing.

I just like the idea of having both 39:1 and 69:1

The biggest downfall of the A340 is that the shifter doesn't allow for a true 1st gear since Lo still allows it to shift to 2nd. You took care of that with the new shifter module.
The 2nd one is that the A340 will starve for fluid at severe angles at time. However, even with my old crawler, I never had a single issue where that happened.